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Revolutionizing Czechness: Smetana and Propaganda in the Umělecká Beseda

St. Pierre, Kelly M.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1333472822

Abstract Details

2012, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Musicology.
This dissertation focuses on Czech national hero Bedřich Smetana whose life and works have long been associated with Czech nation-building and notions of idealistically Czech sounds. The purpose of my project is to examine how Smetana came to occupy this position: Who was responsible for this construction? Who gained from it? And what role did Smetana himself play? Answering these questions requires the examination of not just the composer, but the powerful organization he helped found in 1863 called the Umělecká beseda (“Artistic Society,” or UB). The UB was at the center of Czech artistic and political life during the nineteenth century and still exists today. Its members used the organization’s influence throughout its history to publish writings on Smetana that have profoundly shaped modern understandings of the composer. Beginning in the 1870s, UB members produced carefully curated collections of materials related to Smetana (criticism, editions of the composer’s letters and diaries, and even scores), which they harnessed as tools in a series of political campaigns. During the twentieth century, UB critics selectively published Smetana studies to suit the ideologies of the Communist administration. Today, UB scholarship and the political circumstances surrounding its production make understandings of the composer inseparable from political advocacy. Here, I use UB publications along with those of the organization’s critics to reveal Smetana as a figure whose biography has been appropriated for deliberately political ends since the organization’s founding. Doing so opens a window onto the wider complexities of Eastern European nationhood and reveals how music, scholarship, and Smetana have shaped political ideologies through the twentieth century.
Francesca Brittan, Dr. (Advisor)
Daniel Goldmark, Dr. (Committee Member)
Mary Davis, Dr. (Committee Member)
Martha Woodmansee, Dr. (Committee Member)
193 p.
Music
Bed&345; ich Smetana; Um&283; leck&225; beseda; Czech music; Czech opera; music drama; symphonic poem; nationalism; Prague; 19th century; Communism; M&225; vlast; Libu&353; e; Zden&283; k Fibich; Hudebn&237; klub; Zden&283; k Nejedl&253;

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • St. Pierre, K. M. (2012). Revolutionizing Czechness: Smetana and Propaganda in the Umělecká Beseda [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1333472822

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • St. Pierre, Kelly. Revolutionizing Czechness: Smetana and Propaganda in the Umělecká Beseda. 2012. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1333472822.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • St. Pierre, Kelly. "Revolutionizing Czechness: Smetana and Propaganda in the Umělecká Beseda." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1333472822

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1333472822
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© 2012, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.